Home construction – testing what we know
6 July 2017
Ninety-seven percent of new dwelling consents lead to a completed home, experimental figures released by Stats NZ today
show.
Stats NZ produces monthly building consent figures, quarterly estimates of building work undertaken, and quarterly
estimates of how many homes there are in New Zealand. The missing piece of the puzzle is just how many consents are
completed, when they are completed, and where in New Zealand they are.
To answer this, Stats NZ produced some new experimental statistics. The test figures show that while almost all building
consents turn into homes over time, it can take almost a year from the time a consent is issued before the house-warming
starts.
Experimental dwelling estimates were released today on the Stats NZ innovation website. These include initial estimates of how many homes have been completed in the 67 territorial authority areas and what
the supply of housing is in each location.
The estimates suggest that at a national level:
• About 97 percent of dwelling consents lead to a home being finished, though it dropped to about 93 percent
during the 2008 global financial crisis.
• It currently takes about 10 months for a new home to be built after a dwelling consent is is sued. The lag was
about six months in 1998, and 12 months in 2008.
• About 28,000 new dwellings were completed in the year ended March 2017. Just under 31,000 dwellings were
consented during the same period.
• About 1.84 million private dwellings were available in New Zealand at March 2017, comparable to the official
Dwelling and Household estimates. Dwelling and household estimates released tomorrow will provide an estimate for the
June 2017 quarter using official methodology.
“While consents show an intention to build and are a good indicator of construction, we want to know how many are
actually being built across New Zealand,” accommodation and construction indicators manager Melissa McKenzie said. At
this stage, the new estimates are simply a test. Stats NZ is seeking feedback to see if people find the figures useful
and how they could be improved.
Changes in methodology and data sources may result in revisions, so results should not be considered final, or used in
decision-making. The best measures of dwellings to use in decision-making are:
Ends